Page 57 of Deacon

That sat ugly in my gut.

The monitor hummed steadily between us while Priest looked down at the sonogram photos again, quieter now, and I could almost see the weight shifting inside him. “You already know what you want,” I said after a while. “That ain’t the problem.”

Priest didn’t answer.

“The problem,” I went on, my voice roughening as fatigue tugged at me again, “is tryin’ to love somebody without lettin’ ’em see where you came from.”

His jaw tightened around the next breath. Pain moved through me too, a dull throb beneath my ribs, but I kept going.

“You survived somethin’ most men don’t. And instead of lettin’ that make you cruel, you tried to make yourself...” I searched for the word and found it. “Contained. Predictable. Safe.”

Priest huffed once, humorless.

“Nothin’ wrong with that,” I said. “Except you kept the wrong things out.”

I looked toward the floor and then back at him, my own hypocrisy sitting plain between us now. I could hand out advice from a hospital bed to one of the men I trusted most in this world while my own girl walked in and out of my room like every glance between us carried live current. I still had no damn clue how to begin fixing what I had done to her.

“But you don’t build a future by pretendin’ the fire never touched you,” I said. “You build it by showin’ the scars and trustin’ the right person not to flinch.”

Priest turned his face toward the door, toward anything that wasn’t me seeing too much. I let the silence stretch for a moment before calling him back.

“Priest,” I murmured.

He stopped.

“You’re not him,” I said. The words came quieter now, exhaustion starting to win, but no less true for it. “You never were. What you built for us, with us, proves that.”

Priest didn’t look back.

“I saw the way she looks at you,” I added. “She saw you without the armor. Saw the parts you keep locked down.”

His jaw shifted once.

“And she didn’t flinch,” I said. “Didn’t try to fix you. Didn’t ask you to be anybody else.”

I watched him absorb that, his shoulders carrying more than stitches, blood loss, and near misses could account for. The meds were pulling harder at me now, blunting the edges of the room, but I needed him to hear the rest.

“If you keep livin’ like you might be him,” I finished, my voice fading a little as the meds started dragging me under again, “you’ll lose the only person who ever saw you bare and chose you anyway.”

The room went quiet after that, full without being tense or easy. I let my eyes drift shut and saw Lila immediately because of course I did. Eighteen by the lake, then thirty-five in scrubs, side-eyeing Nomad like she could cut him in half with one sentence. Lila beside my bed telling me not to push, then leaving and somehow taking half the air with her.

I had told Priest to follow the rules. Show up. Tell the truth.

Good advice.

Advice I had never followed myself.

The irony was bitter enough to taste, but maybe that had to change. Maybe waking up hadn’t only been getting dragged back into pain, machines, and questions I didn’t want. Maybe it had also left me wrecked enough to finally see that whatever noble story I had told myself about leaving Lila had rotted through years ago.

The reasons had been real. The fear had been real.

So was the damage.

If I wanted any chance now, it couldn’t be built on disappearing again or deciding for Lila what she should know. I would have to stand still for it, tell her the truth, and let her hate me if that was what she needed.

Let her choose.

The thought scared me worse than the bullets had. It also felt like the first honest thing I had allowed myself to want in years.